asgardmeridiem | [open] if you don't shut your mouth, you're gonna feel the floor.

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[open] if you don't shut your mouth, you're gonna feel the floor.

Who: John Allerdyce and, perhaps, you.
What: Crossing the line and getting his ass fired.
When:Night 267
Where: Baldr, either at the bar or wandering.
Rating: PG-13 for John's mouth and potential violence, will mark up if needed.

[They knew that he drank on shift. They knew that he mouthed off customers and occasionally even told them to get right the fuck out of the bar. But they were strapped for employees, so they held onto him.

Until he got extremely loaded on this particular evening and started - or attempted to start - a fistfight with his boss. The large, burly man had just enough colour to be angry, so he joined in gladly, and it got to the point where Pyro had to pull his knife. One long cut up his boss's bicep later, Pyro's ass was out on the street.

You can find him:

A) Standing in the open doorway of the small bar, hollering abuse at the owner/bouncer who just threw him out, his arms and face badly bruised and a slight list to his walk;

or

B) Wandering through Baldr with a fresh bottle in his hand, a steady stream of muttered annoyance trailing behind him. There may be shadows of bruising left, but they'll be hard to make out in the darkness.

It's hard being Pyro, damnit. So much manpain, so little time.]

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That'd be handy.

[She watches him with the lighter a moment before looking back up to his face.]

So how do you deal with it? Losing a part of yourself.

[He laughs bitterly.]

Drink a lot? Get in fights? Mouth off the gods and get cursed?

Oh, and get told to suck it up and deal with it a lot.

[She goes quiet a moment, considering that. When Paul had died, she'd had no choice but to suck it up and deal with it. They were literally in the middle of a battle and she had people that needed to get to safety. She hadn't held it together for long though and it wasn't her chosen method of dealing, but then they were talking about powers and not people.]

Not that easy, is it?

[There hasn't been one day here that she hasn't missed the riot of noise and people in her head. Some of them she missed more than others--she ached, she missed Paul so much--but they were all a part of her that she couldn't imagine living the rest of her life without. They had literally made her who she was.]

It's hell. [A bit of a cold smile touches his lips.] Just got fired for knifing my boss. Back home, I could've taken out the whole bar in a second - now I get one cut in before the shit's getting beaten outta me.

[But it's not just the destructive power, the fact that he can wield it over others.]

It's in my blood. Shapes the whole way I see the world. Not having that... it's not even like going blind, or losing an arm. It's losing yourself but still being alive.

All right, Kid, so the big question is, why were you trying to knife your boss? Or take the bar out for that matter.

[Echo doesn't understand the need to wield power over others. In fact, it's one of the major things she fought against with the Dollhouse. No one should have control over another person's life that way as far as she's concerned. She's certainly not a live and let live sort of person. She's murdered plenty of people and if she were still back home, would again. She just has some distinct ideas about power and control.]

That part though, you don't have to explain. I get that part. Like they're slowly bleeding all of the you away until you're an empty shell to be filled however they see fit.

[And in her case, she means that literally.]

He pissed me off. [She gets a surly look.] And I'm eighteen. Haven't been a kid for a long time, literally or any other way.

[The attitude drains from his face as she keeps talking. She does get it. Completely.]

There's more of us, though. And some of us are used to this fight. We won't just put up with it.

[She rolls her eyes at the surly look. She's not impressed.

It's on the tip of her tongue to pop off back at him when the expression on his face stops her cold.]

Now you're talking about something I know about. So you're the rebellion? Or is it more organized than that?

The gods aren't that smart. [He smirks arrogantly.] They brought in the three top members of the mutant resistance back home. Two of them're from a different time, but that doesn't matter - they're still used to getting kicked around and don't take it that well.

And I brought down the Dollhouse back home. So the question is, why are they bringing us all together? It doesn't seem that smart, but assuming they're dumb is sorta...setting ourselves up for failure. [She doesn't want to call him 'dumb' for assuming the gods are dumb, but pride goeth before the fall or something like that.]

Dollhouse. [It's a gross name, but in his drunk state, it strikes him as kind of funny.] That's seriously what it's called?

[Yeah, other people have made that point to him before, but he just keeps seeing more and more proof that they're flat-out dumb. Tricky, conniving, but dumb.]

Somebody said something to me when I first got here... [His expression drifts off as he tries to remember it, and who, but he only comes up with one in the end.] ... it's about strong emotions, right? So if you're pissed off the whole time you're here, it helps 'em more than if you're just accepting.

Yup. That's seriously what it was called. [it's very...descriptive if nothing else.

She considers the idea and then nods.]

So they bring the people who are going to be the most pissed off. I can dig that.

Sometimes. [His lip curls in distaste.] Most of 'em would surprise you. All settled in, living new lives, like they just moved here instead of being kidnapped. You'd think even a human would lose it about that, considering what control freaks they are, but most people here just told me to shut up and deal with it until the war ended when I showed up.

Gotta say, my reception was a little warmer than that. [She's not surprised that people settled in. That's what people did. It was how they coped. They didn't want to lose whatever stake they had in things. ]

So you always this angry about everything? Or this just a pissed off sort of day?

[That makes him snort.]

Bit of both. This place always finds something new to piss me off, but I wasn't that happy with how things were going at home, either.

Nobody ever made you go to therapy for it?

Therapy? [He laughs out loud, really loud, at the very idea.] Not many pro bono therapists for the homeless, and the boarding school I went to after that had a doctor, but no shrinks. Too bad, I bet I really would've liked it.

[The last line is dripping sarcasm.]

Oh yeah, it's a barrel of monkeys. [She smirks, serving up her own sarcasm.]

You've seriously been to therapy? [He sounds like he's just found a unicorn. So many screwed up kids in his world, so little therapy.] How bullshit is it, for real?

[She shrugs.] Part of the program. [Well, sort of. It was a dollhouse thing]

Pretty bullshit. Mostly they want you to talk about all the shit you don't want to talk about. A lot of 'how does that make you feel'.

So they stick people in your head, and then they send you to therapy. The Dollhouse sounds like a riot.

[Seriously, if anyone had ever tried something like that with mutants, Magneto would've murdered them where they stood. And humans did this to one another.

Although that begs the question. A more important question than the nature of therapy.]

Did you sign up for this shit?

[Echo makes a face, head tilting to one side.] Actually...yeah. They didn't give me a lot of choice. It was the Dollhouse or prison. I sort of...started trying to take them down even before I became one of the actives. They could have convicted me for a lot of things. This way...I had a chance to take them down from the inside and avoid the orange jumpsuits and prison rape. Good times for everyone.

Holy shit. [He stares sidelong, both sobered by the thought of sacrificing so much to take down one group and too drunk to contemplate it properly.]

That's pretty badass.

[Echo shrugs.]

Yeah. I'm awesome that way. [She reaches over to pluck the bottle out of his hands and takes a drink before handing it back. It's indicative of just how 'awesome' it wasn't.]

[It gets a little laugh out of him, and he drinks long and deep when he gets the bottle back.]

I wouldn't even go back to Xavier's undercover, never mind the government or something. Fuck that. I'd roast the first guy who started mouthing off about us.

You know you don't get much information out of people when you roast them, Smart Guy. [She says it with a smirk, clearly teasing him.]

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ex_outofcontrol435 - 2013-06-28 14:14 (UTC) - Expand

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